


Tip of the Tongue

by AsperJasper



Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, but it's fun, idk my friends, this comes from nowhere and means nothing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:46:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22121278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsperJasper/pseuds/AsperJasper
Summary: Everyone knew who Spot Conlon was.He dealt in secrets, and secrets were a very lucrative business nowadays. Want to know if your spouse is cheating? Find out for a price. Want to know who you just interviewed but have a feeling a background check won’t cut it? Find out for a price.Want to take down a politician?Anything is possible.For a price.
Relationships: Spot Conlon/Racetrack Higgins
Comments: 7
Kudos: 70





	1. Chapter 1

In the city of New York, there were many ways one could rise to the top.

The cream of the crop, the nice penthouses and tailored clothes and expensive food, all of the things that marked success in the eyes of the Manhattan elite, could be attained through any means one was willing to stoop to.

Most of the people who made it far enough up the social ladder to enjoy the perks of the top few tiers had gotten there through some kind of shady business, some more unpleasant than others.

Everyone knew it.

Race knew it.

He didn’t really have a choice though, did he?

He knew the building he was being sent into dealt in very valuable things, and he needed what they were offering.

They knew he was coming. He could tell. He pushed through the revolving door and felt the eyes of every person in the lobby on him as he crossed to the elevator. He also knew those who had no idea he was coming would be watching the lit numbers above the elevator doors, tracking him to the penthouse, and once they saw the glowing number 80, they’d know exactly why he was here.

That didn’t matter though.

Everyone knew who Spot Conlon was.

He dealt in secrets, and secrets were a very lucrative business nowadays. Want to know if your spouse is cheating on? Find out for a price. Want to know who you just interviewed but have a feeling a background check won’t cut it? Find out for a price.

Want to take down a politician?

Anything is possible.

For a price.

Spot Conlon knew every secret there was to know in the city of New York. Every indiscretion and lie, every secret identity, anything a person didn’t want everybody to know could be found, for a price, in a conversation with Spot Conlon.

And that’s what Race was here to do. To collect secrets about one Joseph Pulitzer that could be used to get the bastard out of office.

He didn’t know much about Spot Conlon. Anything at all, really, aside from the fact that Spot Conlon knew everyone’s secrets. Nobody did.

Spot Conlon was the King of Brooklyn, here in his penthouse, and he didn’t need to build his reputation. He didn’t need people to talk about his imposing physical presence. His threatening voice. His terrifying aura.

People were scared of him because he knew everything. Because if he wanted to, he could destroy anybody.

The elevator beeped quietly at every floor but didn’t stop.

Race had a feeling that was by design. That anybody going to the eightieth floor was sent straight there, no detours.

The eightieth floor was the throne room of the most powerful man in the city, and he didn’t need to be kept waiting.

Race also had no doubt that as soon as he’d pressed the button to take him to the top, Spot Conlon had been made aware that somebody was coming up to see him.

Race was nervous.

He didn’t get nervous all that often. He’d been working with Jack Kelly and his group for a couple of years. They quietly pulled strings behind the political scenes of New York, slowly changing what they could while waiting for the loophole they needed to get the mayor out of office.

Recently, Jack had gotten tired of waiting. They all had, but it took Jack snapping to galvanize the group into being willing to stop watching for an opportunity and dig their own crack into the foundation of Pulitzer’s chokehold on the city. And to do that, they would need secrets.

And everyone knew that Spot Conlon was the one to go to when secrets were needed.

The elevator seemed to be moving slowly. Each beep startled Race a little bit, even though they were evenly spaced. He wasn’t overly confident in his ability to hold himself together when the elevator doors opened and he was facing Spot Conlon.

He didn’t even know what to expect. He had no idea if he was going to be facing somebody physically intimidating, if he was going to feel threatened when the doors opened or if Spot Conlon was going to make him feel at ease. He didn’t know how much the information he was after would cost, if what he had access to would be enough or if he’d have to make arrangements to come back later.

He wasn’t expecting, when the elevator finally stopped with yet another beep on the eightieth floor, to be greeted with a dart flying past his head, a bit closer than he would have liked, and thudding into the dartboard hung next to the elevator doors.

It made Race jump, and his eyes tracked the dart instead of immediately processing the figure that had thrown them.

The great Spot Conlon, trader of secrets and most feared power player in all of New York, was not exactly anything Race had expected.

The way people talked about him, he was huge. Ridiculously strong, intimidating, and just the scariest person alive.

If the person using what looked like a homemade slingshot to shoot darts across the huge office the elevator opened into was Spot Conlon, he was nothing like that.

For one, he was tiny. He looked like he’d be lucky to be measure over five feet, and he was so skinny that if a window had been open, Race would have almost thought he could get picked up by a breeze. When he walked across the room towards Race, he had a slight limp, almost like he’d twisted his ankle a few days earlier and it hadn’t quite healed yet.

The origin of his name was also pretty obvious. Race had known, or at least been pretty positive, that his real legal name wasn’t Spot. He hadn’t known that the nickname had been so…literal.

It was a striking effect, really, spots of almost pure white dashed across his otherwise dark skin in the almost-but-not-quite symmetry that only nature could really achieve. His black hair was pretty long, pulled into a perfect little puff exactly on top of his head, and had a streak of white running all the way through it, starting at a white spot that brushed his hairline from his forehead.

He wasn’t dressed like somebody with as dangerously powerful of a reputation as he had, either. He was wearing a red long-sleeved t-shirt with faded letters on it, a pair of black skinny jeans, and bright red sneakers. Race would have expected a tailored suit or designer outfit, not the kind of clothes he or any of his friends would be wearing on the weekends.

He was young, too, maybe it was his height or maybe the spots on his face distracted from any signs of aging, but Race would have sworn that he was no older than he was, maybe even younger, which was a crazy thought, since nobody under the age of twenty-five had any business being as powerful as Spot Conlon was.

He walked right past Race and pulled the dart from the dartboard.

For the first time, Race noticed that it had hit almost dead center bullseye. He briefly wondered if the dart had been timed as a threat to him. Even if it hadn’t, he certainly felt threatened.

“Antonio Higgins, also known as Racetrack, Race, or Racer. You say you're here on your own, but you’re not. You’re here because of who you work with.”

There weren’t any questions when he spoke. He didn’t look at Race, he studied the dart, spinning it between his fingers. He spoke softly, too, but he didn’t need to raise his voice.

“You work with Jack Kelly. You want information about Joseph Pulitzer. He came to me too, you know, and I turned him away. Why would I help you?”

Spot Conlon finally looked up at Race. He made brief eye contact and then crossed the room and sat behind his big desk, nodding at the chair across from it to tell Race to sit as well.

Race sat.

Spot stared at him silently.

His eyes were intense, glimmering and so dark Race wasn’t sure if they were black or brown. He seemed like he was looking directly through Race’s own eyes into his head, like he was pulling every secret out, thought by thought.

Race swallowed and started the speech Jack had told him to say.

About how Pulitzer’s corruption was hurting the city, about how people with either rich or starving because of his price tampering, about how their group had been trying for years to get him out the legal way but had finally realized that they would never win. They needed secrets on him so strong that nobody would be able to deny how horrible he was, secrets that would destroy his entire platform and rip away his power so there was at least a chance of somebody better controlling the city.

Spot stopped him before he was four sentences in.

“I know what Kelly sounds like when I hear him. You tell him that if he wants my help himself, he’ll come see me face to face. Tell him I know what he says and I want to know his reasons haven’t changed.”

“What?”

“He’ll know what I mean.” Spot tilted his head to the door, a clear dismissal, and Race stood up to leave.

When the elevator doors opened, another dart hit the dartboard next to it.


	2. Chapter 2

Jack was absolutely furious when Race delivered Spot’s message.

Whatever it meant, Jack clearly understood, and he was not happy with it.

“That absolute bastard,” he said. “He didn’t give you anything?”

“Just said you had to see him face to face.”

Race was used to Jack’s moods, swinging rapidly from overjoyed to fuming to despondent constantly. He never took anything out on anyone but himself, and it came out of a place of caring too much. When it was really bad, either a high or a low, Race was pretty good at getting him out of his own head.

This wasn’t a low, and Race had a feeling Jack would be mad about this for a while if the way he was clenching his jaw was any hint.

“That absolute bastard,” he repeated. “If he thinks he’s got us on a leash, he’s got another thing coming.”

Despite Jack’s protest, he, Race, and the newest member of their team, Davey Jacobs, ended up in the elevator together a week later.

Davey was a smooth talker, absolutely the most convincing person Race had ever heard speak except for maybe Jack when Jack got really fired up. He’d just kind of appeared, like most people to join their group had, and as soon as his talents were discovered he’d ended up in Jack’s inner circle.

And it definitely didn’t have anything to do with the fact that Jack was absolutely enamored with the guy. No sir, Race had heard Jack complain about it enough times to be absolutely certain that Davey’s “perfect hair and pretty eyes and a good voice, and have you heard the words he uses? He’s so smart,” had nothing to do with his sudden rise to practically second-in-command.

If he had been any less useful and genuinely dedicated to their cause, somebody would have called bullshit on Jack for letting his feelings cloud his judgment, but nobody had any complaints about Davey. It had even been his idea to start chipping away at Pulitzer’s reputation in the hopes of getting him weak enough that they’d finally be able to take him down.

And so Davey made three in an elevator silent other than the steady beeping as they ascended. Just like when Race went by himself, the elevator didn’t stop to pick up anybody else.

No darts went whizzing into the dartboard next to them when the doors slid open.

Spot Conlon was sitting at his big desk across the room, looking much more the part today than he had a week ago.

His hair hadn’t changed, still pulled into a perfectly round puff on top of his head, but his outfit had. Instead of the casual jeans and t-shirt he’d been wearing last time, he was in what Race had expected in the first place, a perfectly tailored suit.

If it had been anything other than perfectly tailored, he would have looked ridiculous, Race thought. He was already so tiny, any extra fabric would have made him look like a kid who got into his father’s wardrobe.

With a suit that fit him so perfectly, though, Race was instantly intimidated.

The big desk and wall of windows behind him should have made Spot Conlon look even smaller than he was. They should have overshadowed him and made it easy to cross the room and start negotiating for the secrets they needed.

Instead, the bright daylight coming from behind him turned him into a striking silhouette. As their small group got closer to him, he came into focus. He didn’t spare a glance for Race or Davey. He wasn’t exactly glaring, if anything his face was being kept carefully pleasantly neutral. His eyes, though, his eyes sent a chill down Race’s spine. If looks could kill, Jack Kelly would have been leaving this room in a body bag.

“Conlon.” A muscle in Jack’s jaw twitched.

“Kelly.”

When Race had come alone, Spot had been approachable enough. Not friendly, certainly, and Race had felt nervous the entire time, but the look Spot was giving Jack right now was murderous. Like something about Jack was so personally offensive to him that he wanted him dead and buried. Like maybe he was planning on doing the killing himself.

Jack was sending an equally terrifying stare right back, though the rest of his face wasn’t as controlled as Spot’s. He was just outright glaring.

“So you finally admit you need my help.”

“And you refuse to give it.”

“I never said I wouldn’t help you,” Spot said, and his gaze finally shifted to Race and Davey. “I didn’t expect you to bring an army.”

“Like I’d come alone after what happened last time.”

“You know that was the only way.”

“And I also know you were far too happy about it.”

So Spot and Jack knew each other. That explained why Jack was angrier than Race would have expected. And they clearly weren’t exactly the best of friends, which explained the murder looks being shared between them.

“Aren’t you going to introduce your friends?” Spot had again locked eyes with Jack, still keeping his face carefully neutral.

“As if your lackeys haven’t already collected everything you could ever want to know about them.”

Spot tilted his head in acknowledgment.

“My…little birds gave me some information. The basics.”

“Name, family, bank account information.”

“Antonio Higgins, known as Race, Racetrack, or Racer. Your second in command. David Jacobs, known as Davey or, newly and occasionally, the Mouth. Your speaker and a rising star in your little revolution. That’s all I know and all I need to know unless something changes.”

“If you know everything already, why do you need to talk to me to figure out if you want to help us.”

“Because, Jacky, you happen to be better than most at keeping your secrets, and there’s one that I need to know before I know if I can trust you.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“You lost any nickname privileges a long time ago, _Sean_ ,” Jack spat, and a flicker of something other than hate or self-control flashed in Spot’s eyes.

“Maybe we should handle this without your little entourage on the room.”

“Maybe we should.”

Davey and Race made nervous eye contact at that. They were both picking up on the tension between Jack and Spot, Race could see it in Davey’s face. Race wasn’t confident that leaving them alone together wouldn’t end up in a knife fight.

Spot slid a drawer open and pulled out a remote without breaking eye contact. He hit a button, and a panel on the wall to the right of the desk popped open, revealing it was a door. He tilted his head towards it, still holding eye contact with Jack.

“Why don’t you have them wait over there while we finish up here.”

“In a secret torture chamber? Fat chance.”

“In my living room, actually.” He hit the same button again, and the door silently swung all the way open. It did, in fact, reveal a very tastefully decorated living room.

Jack’s eyes flicked sideways, glancing into the room. His jaw muscle twitched again, and he jerked his head towards it just like Spot had, albeit slightly more angrily.

Race hesitantly crossed to the door, Davey behind him, and as soon as they crossed the threshold, the door closed behind them.

“I don’t like that,” Davey said, already starting to anxiously pace back and forth.

“I didn’t know they knew each other. Did you?” 

Davey shook his head.

Race pressed his ear to the door, trying to hear the conversation on the other side. He couldn’t, which wasn’t a surprise. He had no doubt that Spot’s living area was completely sealed off and soundproofed from his office after seeing the cleverly hidden door.

The living room was about half the size of the office, which was still positively gigantic. There was a couch, the kind that looked pretty but also uncomfortable, in the middle of the room. It was L-shaped, and there was a weird matching leather square thing framed by it. It looked like it was supposed to be some kind of a cross between a coffee table and a footrest. There was also a huge tv on the wall, and the wall the door was on was lined with several bookshelves. The windows behind Spot’s desk in the office continued across a third wall, and the fourth had a glass elevator running up it, probably into the rest of the apartment the living room was probably a part of.

Race turned his attention to the bookshelves.

He hadn’t ever worked with, for, or against anybody with a reputation or bank account as big as Spot Conlon’s, but he’d had the unfortunate opportunity to cross paths with a few people of similar occupations.

So while he had no doubt the office was soundproofed and sealed off, and no doubt that he wouldn’t be getting through the door he’d come in without that remote, he was just as certain that there was some way to see and hear what was going on in the office from this side. Nobody who worked with the kinds of people Spot Conlon undoubtedly did would be stupid enough to walk into every meeting unprepared.

If Race was lucky, which he often was, that way to observe the other side of the wall would be somewhere he could find from the living room. If he was unlucky, it would be via a camera that streamed to a computer he definitely wasn’t risking looking for.

He was lucky, though. He was almost always lucky, it was something he’d almost come to rely on, and so he wasn’t surprised to feel a tiny, almost invisible switch behind a bookend that made a panel on the back of the shelf slide open and reveal a screen. Race could see through to Spot’s office, and when the panel was fully open, the sound started coming through, too.

“-forgot?” Spot was saying.

“Well, the way you’re living sure seems to say so.”

Jack was mad, he’d been mad since he’d been told he had to come to see Spot Conlon himself, but the type of anger Race was seeing right now was completely different from how Jack usually got angry.

Normally, Jack’s anger was loud. He tended to explode, take a deep breath, and start over once he was in control of himself. When he was angry at anything other than himself, it was over quickly.

That wasn’t the type of anger Race could see in him right now. This was controlled, scary anger. Anger that had obviously had a while to simmer and hadn’t gone out. He was visibly tense in a way that made Race nervous he was about to punch Spot.

“You think any of this is for anything other than what it started as? You must be more stupid than you used to be.”

“What it started as? You’re here because you left me behind, don’t think I’ve forgotten that!”

“All this started in the exact same place everything you have started.”

“Only you sit up here in a nicer bedroom than he has, collecting secrets and selling them off and not doing anything for anyone other than yourself.”

“And what have you accomplished with your little group? I pay attention, Jack, all you’ve managed is putting more kids in the line of fire.” Spot was tensing up to match Jack, now. Race had absolutely no idea what they were talking about, but whatever it was, they both clearly had some pretty strong feelings about it.

“Don’t talk to me about kids in the line of fire, Spot Conlon,” Jack spat.

Race had never been more glad to not be in a room, to not have somebody’s words directed at him. Until Spot replied, anyway.

“No? Shall I list the kids you’ve had a hand in hurting? Starting with Michael?”

Faster than Race could track, or maybe faster than whatever little camera was feeding the little screen could track, Jack slapped Spot. Not a punch, an open-palmed slap across the face.

“Don’t fucking dare talk to me about him,” Jack said, lowly and dangerously.

Spot hadn’t moved. He was staring at Jack through narrow eyes, and Race was momentarily scared that a dart or a laser or a bullet or something was going to appear and kill Jack instantly.

“I have as much of a right as you do.”

“No. You don’t.” Jack leaned back away from the desk, his arms crossed over his chest. “You lost that right when you ran.”

“I didn’t run.”

“You disappeared and left me alone. You left me to do what you should have done, and the next time I hear your name, you’re a fucking millionaire who’s probably playing both sides of the field because all you care about is your fucking secrets and who will pay for them.”

“Pulitzer came to me weeks ago, you know,” Spot said quietly. “Acted like he didn’t know me even though I could see it in his eyes that he remembers everything.”

“And he offered you a huge paycheck-“

“And he asked to know about you. About what happened after everything, where you were. For every record you’ve ever left, for the things that got you in trouble the first time, the names and the same for everyone you work with. He offered me enough to own the city. Enough to buy myself an office like his. And I said no. I told him to leave. He knows who I am, Jack, he remembers everything he did to us. To Michael. He looked me in the eye and pretended not to, and acted friendly when I said I couldn’t help him. I told him you erased everything, that I had nothing, and wouldn’t be able to get it. He knows I lied. He’s mad, Jack, mad and desperate.”

“So is every person in this goddamn city.”

“Not like him, Jacky. He’s scared of you.”

“So give us what we need to end this.”

“Not unless I have assurance that ending this brings us to the end you used to want.”

“I haven’t changed. You have.”

“No. I haven’t,” Spot said simply. “I just decided to use my skills to get shit done much more successfully than you.”

“You’re exactly the people we used to hate. I’m not blind.”

“I’ve made a difference.” The acid in Spot’s voice was palpable even through the small screen and tinny speaker. “I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, Jacky boy, but things get done when I’m driving the train. You and your little group skulking around in the shadows-“

“Putting cracks in the foundation, which was your whole thing-“

“Ten years ago. When things weren’t this out of control.”

“That’s why we’re here, Spot. To move to the next step.”

“And I’m not helping you until I know you’re still the person-“

“That’s bullshit, and you know it.” Jack leaned across the desk and got in Spot’s face.

Race started when he felt Davey’s hand on his shoulder, and Davey leaned in close behind him to watch with him.

“You won’t help us because you’re a coward. You were then, and you are now. You haven’t changed, Conlon. Maybe you should have.”

“Come back when you’re willing to work with me, Kelly. Not against me, and not despite. Open those boxes-“

“Never.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to get your secrets the old fashioned way.”

Spot flashed a tight, mean smile at Jack, and then hit the button on his remote that made the door pop back open.

Race hit the little switch he’d found again to shut the screen back up and followed Davey back out into the office.

“Come back any time, Jacky. It’s always good to see an old friend.” The fake sweetness in Spot’s voice was almost more acrid than his anger.

“Likewise, I’m sure.”

And the same thing in Jack’s voice was strange and terrifying because Race had never known Jack to hide his emotions. At all. Even two minutes ago he’d been blatant in his anger, and something about the way he was trying to hide that now made Race worried.

“Let’s go,” Jack said.

“Race. Stay for a minute,” Spot said quietly, and if that alone hadn’t sent a chill down his spine, the look in Jack’s eyes would have.

“What do you need with him?”

“To have a conversation. He’ll be fine.”

“Like hell-“

“It’s…fine, Jack. I survived him alone once, didn’t I?”

Jack and Davey still both looked worried when the elevator closed over their faces, and Race swallowed with a dry mouth when he turned to face the desk.

Spot Conlon was still sitting in his big chair, staring at Race with an unreadable expression on his face.

Just like last time, he dipped his head towards the chair across from him and waited for Race to sit.

“Eavesdropping isn’t polite, you. Especially on your friends.”

“I-“

“You’re…lucky. Finding the switch so quickly. Not many people ever have. Nobody, in fact.”

“I-“

“Just wanted to make sure your friend was okay. Admirable, but still rude.”

Race swallowed again.

Spot just looked at him.

Race had the crawling feeling that Spot knew a whole lot about him just by looking into his eyes. Something about them was just…intensely all-knowing.

“Jack is one of the only people who can hide things from me. He knows it. He wants me to give up some of the most powerful secrets in the city to somebody who I don’t know almost anything about anymore, and I won’t do it.”

“Jack is a good-“

“Of course he is. He has always been a good man with the best intentions. He’s also always been impulsive, rash, and unable to see the consequences of his actions before they happen. He knows that I want the same things you do and can’t understand why I won’t just give him what he wants. The problem is how well I know him. I won’t risk everything I’ve worked towards because Jack Kelly asked me to.”

“Why are you explaining this to me?”

“Because I want you to know. You’re lucky, Race. That’s a very useful skill. You should use it more. You could do a lot working with me.”

“I’m not giving up on everything I’ve done with Jack. And luck isn’t a skill.”

“Are you sure? Not many people are as lucky as you.”

“It’s luck.”

“Too much luck is often something else. You don’t have to choose between Jack and me. We’re all working for the same thing, after all. Just know that if you ever want more to do, I’ll have something for you.”

“Thanks for the offer,” Race said cautiously. “But I don’t think I have anything to offer you.”

“Oh, you do. You have a lot to offer me. Come back anytime, and I’ll show you.”

Spot broke the eye contact he’d been so carefully maintaining and stood up, a clear dismissal.

The elevator was already waiting for Race when he pushed the button.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes you delete all of arts and hearts while trying to clear space on your computer because you thought it was in folder you'd already copied over to your flash drive but it turns out it wasn't and in your desperate attempts to locate your draft that no longer exists you stumble upon another wip that slaps and get distracted by writing that one and that's the story of how this chapter came to be lmao
> 
> i still don't really know exactly what this is but I'm very much vibing with it so i hope somebody else out there is too! as always I'm Asper and I'd love it if you'd leave a comment telling me what you love or hate about this fic!
> 
> also come find me on tumblr @loving-jack-kelly!

**Author's Note:**

> Now I may be the one who wrote this but that doesn't mean I have any idea what it is. If you liked it, hated it, want more of it, comments are the way to tell me that!
> 
> Also come hang out on Tumblr @loving-jack-kelly!


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